Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani

This article concerns existents as a contentious issue in contemporary Abelardian scholarship. More precisely, it concerns the ontological standing of forms in Abelard’s metaphysics. Take, for example, the apple on my desk. What ontological standing does its redness have? Is it an actual entity over...

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Main Author: Hansen Heine
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2024-11-01
Series:Open Philosophy
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2024-0048
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author Hansen Heine
author_facet Hansen Heine
author_sort Hansen Heine
collection DOAJ
description This article concerns existents as a contentious issue in contemporary Abelardian scholarship. More precisely, it concerns the ontological standing of forms in Abelard’s metaphysics. Take, for example, the apple on my desk. What ontological standing does its redness have? Is it an actual entity over and above the apple or is it in some sense “reducible” to it? Abelard, famously, was a nominalist, so the question is not about some purported universal redness. Rather, it is about the particular redness of the particular apple on my desk. The issue is contentious in that the best current accounts of Abelard’s metaphysics disagree strongly about how to answer this question. Here, rather than focusing on Abelard’s own writings – which so far have yielded no definitive answer – I will consider some anonymously transmitted and mainly unedited logical texts from the twelfth century and show how his contemporaries understood Abelard’s view and how the followers of his philosophical nemesis, Alberic of Paris, reacted to it.
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spelling doaj-art-bc4bf951417d4d2aaab4e22b8208eff22025-08-20T02:49:30ZengDe GruyterOpen Philosophy2543-88752024-11-01711141610.1515/opphil-2024-0048Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the AlbricaniHansen Heine0The Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, DenmarkThis article concerns existents as a contentious issue in contemporary Abelardian scholarship. More precisely, it concerns the ontological standing of forms in Abelard’s metaphysics. Take, for example, the apple on my desk. What ontological standing does its redness have? Is it an actual entity over and above the apple or is it in some sense “reducible” to it? Abelard, famously, was a nominalist, so the question is not about some purported universal redness. Rather, it is about the particular redness of the particular apple on my desk. The issue is contentious in that the best current accounts of Abelard’s metaphysics disagree strongly about how to answer this question. Here, rather than focusing on Abelard’s own writings – which so far have yielded no definitive answer – I will consider some anonymously transmitted and mainly unedited logical texts from the twelfth century and show how his contemporaries understood Abelard’s view and how the followers of his philosophical nemesis, Alberic of Paris, reacted to it.https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2024-0048existentsformsaccidentscategoriesabelardalberic of parisnominalesalbricani
spellingShingle Hansen Heine
Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani
Open Philosophy
existents
forms
accidents
categories
abelard
alberic of paris
nominales
albricani
title Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani
title_full Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani
title_fullStr Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani
title_full_unstemmed Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani
title_short Abelard’s Ontology of Forms: Some New Evidence from the Nominales and the Albricani
title_sort abelard s ontology of forms some new evidence from the nominales and the albricani
topic existents
forms
accidents
categories
abelard
alberic of paris
nominales
albricani
url https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2024-0048
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